A forwards game

Well they did it. Ok we were playing a weakened Cas side, but Cas came at us all guns blazing and we dominated up front from start to finish.

Our forwards where on top all game, drove hard, tackled hard and the entire team defended like their lives depended on it. The only negative was the organisation from our play makers. I thought they all had very average games with the ball in hand. Brough did some decent kicks and Grix made lots of yards down the middle, but a lot of the passing was not quite there. Still nice to get back to winning ways and to get our third nilling is a tidy bonus. Does anyone know what the most nil's in a a season is?

Luke's passing was diabollical tonight. The overall team performance was crap I'm afraid.
We are lucky that Cas were as bad as what they were because we were not brilliant.

reidy wrote:

Luke's passing was diabollical tonight. The overall team performance was crap I'm afraid.
We are lucky that Cas were as bad as what they were because we were not brilliant.

A bit harsh imo. I know Cas were very much understrength and we will have to take more advantage of the dominance we had against better sides, but after the Salford game this showed we have desire, especially in defence. We defended something like 5 or 6 sets on our line in the second half.

Matt, they were without 2 key players and we should have been up more than 6 points at the break but sill mistakes and handling errors determined that we weren't.
We have lost and played better in the past matey.

Our drives and tackling were great tonight. Yes our passes weren't great which meant we didn't maximise the opportunities we had. Even though we went in only 6 - 0 up I knew we had the game won because we had battered them up front for the first 40.

You are a bleedin optimist Matt!
I'm not gonna disagree with ya my friend because you have my utmost respect as always.

Have a lovely weekend and see ya soon.

We missed Lunt at dummy half - generally 50/50 pass/scoot,whereas Robinson was 100% pass and no go forward plus his distribution was terrible.Brough's kicking game was gash in the first half.
NB sorted it after half time,got Grix to work the middle of the ruck out of dh.Then we got them on the back foot,but still our execution wasn't great on the back of that.

God it's incredible we nil a side like Cas and we/I pick faults.Just shows how far we have progressed.

Fa'alogo is a beast,a raging bull,totally deserving of the MOTM.

I cannot in for the life in me see how anyone can knock Robbo on tonight's performance. He ran, he backed up, he kicked, he passed, he ran his heart out, he tackled. What more do you want?? One pass went straight into touch, but Jammer was, IMHO, in an offside position to start with.

Brough's first kick was poor, but from then on he placed then superbly well - and varied them.

I daren't say whom I thought to be the weak link as you'll all jump down my throat and say he was the start of the show! 3 poor games in the last 4 - again, IMHO.

Our 4 props plus Fa'alago were outstanding. I'm sure we'll remember Eorl running into a tackler and sending him into a backwards somersault for quite some time!

Ivor C&G Scarf wrote:

I cannot in for the life in me see how anyone can knock Robbo on tonight's performance. He ran, he backed up, he kicked, he passed, he ran his heart out, he tackled. What more do you want?? One pass went straight into touch, but Jammer was, IMHO, in an offside position to start with.

Brough's first kick was poor, but from then on he placed then superbly well - and varied them.

I daren't say whom I thought to be the weak link as you'll all jump down my throat and say he was the start of the show! 3 poor games in the last 4 - again, IMHO.

Our 4 props plus Fa'alago were outstanding. I'm sure we'll remember Eorl running into a tackler and sending him into a backwards somersault for quite some time!

As you say my friend, an opinion. I think Robbo has had much better games and he appeared hesitant with his passing tonight.

Jammer weren't offside when that loose pass of Robbo's went into touch. He was running on for it and Robbo hesitated for a split second as Jammer picked his pace up.

No-one is gonna jump down your throat Ivor, thats the point of this forum, if you have an opinion, put it on.

I think that the first half was amongst the most boring 40 mins of RL i have seen this year.
I don't think we really started to play that well until 10 minutes into the second half, Brough was taken off and replaced by Grix and suddenly everything picked up, you watch the replays, the instant Grix replaces Brough and the pace changes dramatically.
That said when Brough comes back on the pace does not change and he put away some excellent kicks.

A good win, not a classic like the potential it had, but a good win.

Thats it fella, a wins a win.
Our lack of discipline was in danger of costing us though, I think that there were 4 counts of markers not square, a few offsides and a mouthing off at the match official.
NB needs to tackle these problems asap!

Don't think anyone could ever fault Robinson's work ethic,just that there were a couple of issues with his overall game and maybe due to the fact that the hooking role is relatively new to him.

He did not jump out of dh often enough in the first period,he was just content to pass,which meant there became an element of predictability about our play,drives then ball shifted to Brough for the kick.Of course the heroic Cas tackling had a lot to with the fact we didn't make as much progress on the fringes as we wanted.Had LR mixed things up a bit more and jumped out on occasions that would have helped to keep Cas guessing and maybe more on the back foot.

Plus the passing was poor on too many occasions,the forwards were not getting the service into the bread basket,so they could get up a head of steam for the collision.The ball was often up at chest height,they had to keep one eye on the defenders who were getting a rush up on them because of the poor service.

It was noticable that he put Grix into dh after ht and Robbo out into the halves,that was when we started to improve.

All just my opinion from the live viewing.Not watched the replay yet.

I wasn't over impressed with our performance last. Also seems a bit wierd that we looked flat for so long last night, then Brough went off and hey presto we looked eager for it.

As someone has already said, it shows how far we have come when we are not completely happy when we have scored 24 points and nilled the opposition, But for me that was very unsatisfactory, Not from the point of view of effort, but skill wise it was third rate, First half I saw only one offload, that came from K Brown and resulted in a try, Second half there was maybe 4 mostly from Fiaumu, To be honest It's not good enough, every other team seems to me has a couple of forwards who can get a Offload in, Eorl seemed as though he was getting it mastered but it seems to be disappearing again.
Myself I think we have too many players getting big raps for putting effort in, Especially forwards,That's what they are supposed to do, but they are supposed to have skills as well, It,s OK having players who just cart the ball up endlessly, Like Jackson did for us, and now Raliegh does the same job, Also Mason and Griff, But you also need forwards who are good with the ball in hand otherwise you get games like last night, All our forwards stand up to the job when defending, attacking we are very short on skills.

Another thing for me is we have too many play makers on the field at once, too many kickers for one thing, we have Brough, Brown, Robbo/Lunt, Hodgson and Grix all kicking at some times, we dont look the least bit organized to me, I expect Brough will settle into being the main one eventually, It is good to keep the opposition unsure about where the kick may come from, but we are overdoing it .

Cas didn't make it easy, but we never looked like loosing, the defence on the line was superb, even if it was a very weakened team, B Hodgson and Jamma both blew great chances of try's, by sticking to the ball, And Lawrence looks to have lost everything in attack,
Still HKR next up , They will no doubt get themselves up for that, There was plenty of effort last night , but they will need a bit more than that for the cup game, I'm sure they know that though.

I think that you've hit the nail on the head there, Bo. The forwards don't pass the ball. Driving and defensively they were immense last night. But, apart from Eorl's one, I cannot remember them passing [props & back row].

Ivor C&G Scarf wrote:

I think that you've hit the nail on the head there, Bo. The forwards don't pass the ball. Driving and defensively they were immense last night. But, apart from Eorl's one, I cannot remember them passing [props & back row].

Just watched Saints v Quins Ivor, Pulitua gave a master class, Not everyone can be that good but we should be able to expect one or two more offloads than we get ,from our props ,second rows. I can only assume that the game plan is to hit the opposition as hard and often as you can, and rely on the players like Robbo ,who have the pace to make the breaks ( and he is one who certainly does his best )

Sorry Bo i think you are wrong all our forwards can handle the ball,they dint have to do last night they were so dominant ,our super star backs should have scored 50 points, it had nothing to do with forwards not passing the ball,are backs made too many poor options and our ball control was poor.

BO JANGLES wrote:

Another thing for me is we have too many play makers on the field at once, too many kickers for one thing, we have Brough, Brown, Robbo/Lunt, Hodgson and Grix all kicking at some times, we dont look the least bit organized to me, I expect Brough will settle into being the main one eventually, It is good to keep the opposition unsure about where the kick may come from, but we are overdoing it .

Good point,now we have so many options for the playmaking role and they all want to get their hands on the ball.Agree that Brough will come out on top of that battle in the long run,simply because he has the best all round game.This is why NB went for him - imo.He needs a bit more time to get used to our attacking structures then we will see the very best of him as a pivot.I think he will really come into his own when we are battling against the stronger sides.His strong kicking game,plus last night he made one sublime individual break in the second half,made it look all so easy as he stepped past a few defenders but then unfortunately put out a poor pass to the support player.

I'll hazard a guess that the player Ivor was referring to as having a poor run of form is B Hodgson,but to me when he (DB) is on the field then it's the Danny Brough show and that's the way N Brown wants it to be.Bodgy's strong suit is joining the line as 2nd 5/8th(as Aussies call it),but with Brough pulling the strings I don't think we'll see that as often.One thing you could never fault Bodgy over though is the positional sense on defence,and he still has it in the legs to come up with the play,and what about his goal kicking absolutely superb from either touchline side.

I said before the game with all Cas's problems I wanted us to wrack up some serious points,that we didn't is why there is some frustration,but that was down to some poor execution from us not forgetting some heroic Cas tackling.Our former players did themselves proud on that score I thought,though some of the hits going in at the start of the second 40 from our boys were outstanding and tbh the only time I recall Cas looking like scoring was chasing a kick into the in goal very late on in the game.

To nil three other competent* SL sides after only 11 rounds is a phenominal effort,and one which all the staff down there should rightly be proud of.

* On second thoughts make that 2 competent SL sides and also Wakefield

i am dissapointed, it should have been 4 teams......frenchies

We are getting to expect too much. We have had some good results over the last season and a half, and if we don`t rack up a lot of points we all start moaning.
Let us all just be thankfull of the way we are playing now compared to 5 or six years ago.

No, deflppard, try the number 6, a favourite of many.

TBH, I'm amazed at some of the comments. Agreed, we didn't pass the ball enough, agreed we picked the pace up after half time [tired player going off, fresh player coming on, NB's words ringing in the team's ears], but a poor match?

I was enthralled for the full 80 minutes. The hits the forwards put in both in attack and defence was worth the entrance money alone. To see a winger score 3 'winger's tries'. To watch the enthusiasm of a severely weakened Cas side keep our 'super stars' at bay.

IMHO NOT a poor game.

I have read all the above and agree with some points and disagree with others, thats the beauty of this forum.
IMO feel we are being a bit harsh on the forwards cos a few times saw Fa'aloga and Raleigh offering the ball in the tackle but they had no-one backing them up.
Think we need to get a bit more eager when the big lads are taking the ball up and have someone like Brown, Robbo or Broughy following them up ala McGuire at Weeds, who scores most of his tries this way.

Well my comment was not so much about that game in particular, as the general lack of ball playing skills amongst the Forwards, They may be doing exactly what they are coached to do as far as i know, And Old school has a point in saying that the backs did, and do, blow a lot of chances, But just as a matter of interest OS which of our forwards do you see as being good ball handlers and off loaders, In that game on Friday i think Eorl got one in, Fiaumu gave 3 or 4, ( as he usually does) and i rarely, if ever see anyone else even attempt one. I suppose when you have just watched Pulitua give a display of tackle busting and offloading, It just highlights it more.

TBH Bo when Fa'alogo played over in Oz he was a very good ball handler, not sure why that has stopped unless as you say it's to do with the gameplan? possibly we still have not got used to his game at the Giants and don't back him up?
Think we look better in that dept when Lunty is on the field.